Get me more Choglet

Similarities between Weekend and Looking, and ultimately with the auteur:

Chris New’s Glenn is very much the central figure, even though it is Tom Cullen’s character we are supposed to follow. Tom often becomes the foil against which Glenn’s antics stand out. Glenn has obvious similarities with Looking’s Agustin: the art project about sex and the uncertainty about its artistic value or even what to do with the idea, though Glenn’s is apologetic about what he thinks is narcissistic and the tendency to act precious. Agustin in season 1 is the cunt that Glenn could have been. Both he and Glenn share that energy contained in pint-sized bodies. Because Andrew Haigh has spoken earlier about how sex holds up a mirror to a person in many ways, and his preoccupation with sex in his works, I wonder if these characters are not born out of some aspect of Haigh himself. There is a scene where Glenn talks of coming out to his parents at 16: ‘Nature or nurture, it’s your fault. So get over it.’ I could imagine Haigh saying it to his own parents. It’s projection of the most facile sort.

I think there is a certain amount of artistic development from Weekend to Looking. There are similar preoccupations in both works, and you can see how the exploration in Looking is, well, more engaging.

I also think of similarities between Haigh and Patrick. Haigh speaks of Patrick’s self-humiliation at his own Halloween party: he ends up screaming from a chair. We’ve all had those moments.’ Cut to Michael Lannan: ‘I haven’t done that. I hope not.’

I wonder if Haigh was not unlike Glenn: barely contained energy and a lot of anger, and the artistic maturing from Greek Pete (a rent boy’s coming of age!) to Looking and now, 45 Years. It makes one very curious to see where he is at artistically (2 Silver Bears must mean something), and how he is exploring those same preoccupations.

I watched Weekend in its entirety today. And a bit personal, the ending. Where I am today, I don’t expect or really want to be tossed by pangs of love. Of course one wants them, but not to the extent that you go seeking it out. The ending, which is all of that, is a bit of a shock, and very life-affirming. That older people also get wound up over feelings, over love, but that it does not demand as much of a sacrifice of control, reason. Glenn’s heart might be breaking, but he will go about his daily business.

When I read about Looking getting cancelled day before, I was surprised at how much it hit me. It was as if a world I craved, wanted like a drug, was snuffed out and taken away. I was shocked at how much I wanted it: Andrew Haigh’s world, his sun-leeched Instagram-filtered San Francisco. In my head, it had become a place I could vicariously inhabit, and now I don’t know where to direct all that feeling.